Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Lap 10 - Lovely Laura Cissell

Date: Tuesday, May 21, 2013, 12:00 PM
Temp: 68 degrees?
Time Up: 32:00
Time Down: 23:00 (backside)

So...this week is the week before the Bolder Boulder.  For the most part it was suppose to be a taper week to get ready for the race.  While the Bolder Boulder isn't an A race for me, I am following somewhat of a training plan for it and I do hope to perform well.  I have a few laps still to finish up this last winter for my fundraising.  I still owe one lap to Laura (this one) and two to Mike Kelly.  Laura I promised that I'd run one with her this summer so while technically this one is hers, she and I still need to find some time to get up on this mountain.  Mike's laps also had a stipulation that we'd run them together and not just run two laps at once (which I've done twice) but to do three.  Since it takes me close to an hour a lap even though the distance isn't long, 3 laps is pretty equivalent of a 3 hour run.  It's going to be a dozy when I do that. :)

Training has been going fairly well lately.  I have taken over leading some of our workouts on track nights on Thursdays.  Mike still helps me put together some of the workouts, but I try and lead them. It's been going really well. Last week we did a great set to prep for the Bolder Boulder (which is a 10k).  We ended up doing 10 x 1k with a 200m rest in-between each set.  The idea was that you run it at your race pace but you are breaking it up with short rests.  All in all my data looked pretty good except that it took me a bit of time to settle into my 10k pace.  

This week the run I had planned for Tuesday I had done the week prior. So instead of repeating that workout I decided that I'd see if Jeff wanted to take a quick jaunt up Sanitas for my Tuesday run. Luckily he was up for it. :)

 Jeff standing before the mountain!

It ended up being the perfect spring day.  Not too hot, not too cool. My good friend Andrea txted me on Monday night seeing if I wanted to get up at 5:30 am and go running with her this same day, after I had already made plans with Jeff.  Since it's hard for me to turn down a friend when they want to run, I said sure. But if anyone knows me, I am not a morning runner. In fact, Andrea I thought was my friend and also not a morning runner, nope, no longer, now she loves it.  I even wrote a poem for her.

a friend she was once
sunrise stole her heart away
why run this early

So not only did I run with her in the morning, I also did Santias with Jeff at lunch.  At the start my legs were pretty tired, but about halfway up I started feeling a bit better about it. While it may have not been a great idea to take a long lunch on a day like today, it did feel great to get out and about.


 It's been raining a lot, everything is green.

So to digress a bit, not only have I been running quite a bit, I'm also training for my first triathalon ever.  It's in September but I have a long ways to go. I haven't started biking yet, but I have started swimming.  My first two swim lessons are behind me.  While I'm getting better, after my swim this week I was pretty discouraged. I think it was the first time since I started down this path that I actually thought I may not be able to complete the race. I have 4 months to go and while I saw progress this week I've decided to just keep at it.  I'll take a few more lessons in June and I'm going to try and hit the pool at least 2 a week (if not 3 times).  At this point I'm even fine cutting back my running in order to get more swim workouts in.
 At the top again!  Legs are a bit tired today.

Last time we were up here, we went back down the frontside.  If you have never hiked Sanitas what you might not know is that it's pretty steep and sort of trecherous.  Jeff had a slight spill that first time he went up so this time we opted to go down the back.  Honestly, the back is a lot more fun. The first half is pretty technical but the second half you can really open up and practice your downhill running.

Coming up on this summer, after the Bolder Boulder my next goal race is the Double Dumbo dare in September. I'm still planning on racing the 10k and then seeing how I feel about the 1/2 the next day. Following that 3 weeks later is my triathlon and then straight into Dopey training. 

What a view!

I've been doing a lot of thinking about Dopey training and have been pondering a blog post about it. In fact when we went to Fruita for the Desert RATs half we talked about it quite a bit on the way back. I think while I'm in TN next week that's going to be one of my goals, to finish this blog post I have rattling around in my head about how to train for something as long as the Dopey without getting burnt out.  

I also realize I never talked about my experience at the Fruita race. Suffice to say it was one of my best races yet, a huge improvement over last year.  I'll try and throw up some pictures and some thoughts about it maybe this weekend.

Stay safe this weekend and enjoy the 3 day break. :)